


A Paradox of Choice

by joisbishmyoga



Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon
Genre: Gen, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-26
Updated: 2015-05-26
Packaged: 2018-04-01 08:48:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4013311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joisbishmyoga/pseuds/joisbishmyoga
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The cat was not for petting, but sometimes, when Michiru woke in a cold sweat, shadows and sharp teeth still gripping her little heart, its eyes would flash a comforting blue-green from the windowsill.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Paradox of Choice

**Author's Note:**

> I was rewatching clips of the 90's series on youtube, and I was struck by something about Neptune in the flashback where she first met Uranus. The way she kept saying she chose her life, even as she was bleeding and injured on Haruka's lap, as if that was the most important thing Haruka had to know, the most important thing about herself...
> 
> And then I remembered Michiru is psychic.

The cat on the garden wall was not for petting.  
  
It was a large, fluffy old man of a cat, his coat a steely gray that hinted at blue under the winter sun, and he had a scar like a slashed crescent moon on his forehead.  His eyes had long since gone a foggy yellow, and he didn’t move much.  Day in and day out, as Michiru circled from home to kindergarten to violin to art to home to first grade, seasons plodding slowly from one to the next, the cat was always there.  
  
The cat was not for petting, but sometimes, when Michiru woke in a cold sweat, shadows and sharp teeth still gripping her little heart, its eyes would flash a comforting blue-green from the windowsill.  
  
“Such an imagination,” her art teacher gushed the next days, a thread of something sharp, like an overwound E string, humming in her voice.  “There’s always a hint of the tsunami in all her work… a powerful energy, I don’t know where she gets it.”  
  
Michiru knew.  
  
“I’ve never heard such depth of emotion from such a young student,” her violin teacher said on the other days.  “Most children, when they manage more than the technical work, play like they’re sure they’ll win fame and fortune any second now.  Michiru… she plays like a cherry blossom waiting to fall.  It’s incredibly mature of her.”  
  
It wasn’t maturity.  It was inevitability.  All the ocean lay before her, and only two paths once she reached the beach.  
  
Second grade passed, then third, and the cat slept on.  
  
Winter.  Coming-of-Age had young women tottering under the snowing skies, sleeves swaying gracefully and fur shawls cutting crescents across their shoulders.  Snow built up on the cherry trees, salt trucks rumbling past Michiru’s window in the wee hours of the night, rattling the icy glass.  
  
She never slept those wee hours.  Somewhere, thunder was starting to rumble far out to sea.  Somewhere, cars squealed in fishtails on the roads.  Somewhere, the shadows circled as they rose from the depths.  
  
The last day of school, Michiru’s appetite drained away.  She could feel the cold sands of the beach under her socked feet, the lapping of rain-drenched salt water on her toes.  
  
“Are you not hungry this morning, sweetheart?” her mother asked.  “I’ll put it in a bento and you can take it to school.  I expect it to be eaten when we come to pick you up.”  
  
The air stuck in Michiru’s throat.  
  
One path, or the other.  The sea was stormy, the beach a knife-edge stretching to each side, rain-lashed and rocky and leading only to darkness in both directions.  
  
“Michiru?”  
  
She swallowed, feeling the water rise.  One path, or the other, or drown.  “Yes, Kaachan,” she whispered, turning into the rockier darkness.  
  
By the time the tires squealed their last at the end of the school day, she’d heard her parents scream a thousand times, and watched the shadows slither free of the engine a thousand times, unseen by the crowd’s eyes.  
  
Unseen, save for one.  The kindergarteners just a few meters away had one tiny, pigtailed blonde hiccuping back her wails, clinging alone to the iron gate with huge eyes pinned to the beast.  The teachers weren’t looking… Michiru could…  
  
No.  
  
The monster hadn’t yet noticed the little girl could see it.  It was looking for Michiru, she’d lead it right to the girl, and then…  
  
Darkness.  The rocky path she’d chosen wasn’t safe from the darker storm, not yet.  
  
She turned and walked quietly back to her parents’ house.  She could mourn later.  Right now, there was work to be done.   A monster to avenge herself on.  A world to save.  
  
“Juno."  Above her, the cat opened one rheumy eye.  "I’m ready.”  
  
 _I choose this life._

**Author's Note:**

> "on the last day of school" - the Japanese school year runs from April to February  
> Kaachan - Mommy


End file.
